John F. Kennedy may have written “Profiles in Courage” but Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has shown us what courage looks like. The Ukrainian president’s stand against Russia’s onslaught is a reminder that true leadership at its core is a performance that inspires and rallies. Such performances become the basis of legend.
Too often we think of performance in negative terms, as something fake or insincere. This is unfortunate. Performance is how a person behaves — or, more accurately, how they choose to behave in certain situations. Performance reveals character (or lack thereof) because it is fundamentally about choice.
There are compelling examples of leadership performance in American history: George W. Bush with a bullhorn in hand in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marching down streets as racists hurl epithets and bricks; Indigenous women, men and children standing up to and fighting “settlers” attempting to evict them from their ancestral lands.
